


miindgame2

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Asphyxiation, Bondage, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, First Time, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Games, Nobody Dies, POV Second Person, Post-Scratch, Sadism, Second Time, Timeline What Timeline, Xeno, eridan being prince of douchebaggery, i want to punch you in the feelings, pesterlogs, rage blackouts are the hottest, right in the feelings, serious misuse of psychic powers, sollux topping, wrath of an engineer scorned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-03 18:14:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sollux captor is great at computers and apathetically shitty at interpersonal relations.  eridan ampora is a huge douche and it's usually on purpose.  when they aren't deliberately antagonizing each other, they're ... uh... hold up, are they ever NOT deliberately antagonizing each other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. awkward first times sure are kawaii

You are Sollux Captor, and you have a fucking terrible headache.  
  
You haven't been out of your respiteblock for nearly a perigee and a half, hunched over the keyboard and staring in bleary fury at the flickering screen of your monitor, occasionally cracking open a bottle of honey Faygo (TC captchalogued practically nothing useful) and shoving prepackaged food into your chute when you feel the need for a buffer between your grinding teeth.  Trollian is barely functional on this stupid fucking asteroid - you kept having to write changes to it, send patches to everyone as every other Alternian server slowly died or simply vanished and the massive Imperial network collapsed.  
  
It's not good enough to just rip a copy and allow it to infest the network you've set up, you've been running it through everyone's browsers.  The actual program file resides on your backup heavy-duty husktop - it's a shitty chat client riddled with bugs and it can't handle everyone's bullshit fuckery with the pink aliens AND the memo board AND the private chats, it keeps crashing and eating up all the memory and occasionally causing actual hardware damage, and then it's  _Oh, Sollux, help, my computer isn't working anymore, fix it!_  
  
(Except it's only your computer, because you're a clever fucker doing some complicated bullshit that KK will never grasp in a million fucking sweeps, heheheheh.  You're only willing to let them damage machines you feel comfortable ripping apart and rebuilding from scratch.  You do not want to sink your elbows into, example, CT's hard drive.  He's on his own.  God2peed.)  
  
The universe has ended.  Obviiou2ly, you had to write your own chat client.  
  
It's compiling, right now, your latest version of Trollian.  If it runs properly and handles the very generous test load on your private LAN - you have seven other functional computers in your work room because _yes_ , I fucking need that many, fuck off KK - you'll give everyone a warning, force-install your program on the 'tops in the lab, and then reboot them remotely.  You don't really give a fuck if they're in the middle of something.  Odds are astronomically tiny that it is anything fucking important - shit, the compiler froze - no, okay, just your monitor acting up, you need to fix that.  
  
You sit up.  
  
Ouch.  Your head is throbbing and your shoulders ache and your mouth sort of tastes like something crawled into it and died a week ago, so, clearly the most urgent course of action is to fetch your laptop.  
  
Preciiou2 baby.  
  
(You pop a jellypupa and bite its head off, too, letting the foamy mint gel clean your teeth, and spit gracefully into an empty Faygo bottle.  Yeah, you're cla22y as 2hiit.)  
  
This was the last seriously expensive piece of hardware you bought yourself before shit went utterly haywire, and the first sensible thing you did after you found a secure spot on LOBAF and had enough grist was alchemize a copy of it to keep in your sylladex, fresh and carefully untouched.  
  
It boots in  _exactly_ two seconds.    
  
You have thirty-six messages from KK, three from CT, none from AA, twelve from FF, a few here and there from the others, and... six thousand, four hundred and eighty-one messages from ED.    
  
... shit, you'd forgotten you bothered to re-alias him from CA.  Your lip is curling downwards and your pulse is throbbing a little harder in your temples before you really notice you're _ reacting_, and when you do, you are incredibly pleased with yourself for ignoring him by complete accident.  Let the fucker stew in his own shit for a while.  
  
You check only the approximate file sizes - KK sent you some really obscenely large ones, so you'll probably have to ask him what the fuck was crawling around in his nook.  FF's were small - brief, reassuring little data packages, but they still sent a stab of disappointed pain through your guts - CT's were short, long, short - ED's start off incredibly massive, but it looks like the last five thousand nine hundred and eighty nine of them are all the same message.  You open one.  
  
It reads:  
  
 _fuck you_  
  
You snicker, and then delete everything.  
  
Eridan Ampora is the most grating, obnoxious, over-the-top prick you have ever had the ill luck to encounter, and he is even worse in real life.  He stuck to you like used gum even after FF  - yeah.  Anyway.  Point is that he's a fucking inexhaustible head wound of pure bullshit.  
  
You've all been stuck on this fucking asteroid for weeks, and the bullshit relationship drama has only gotten worse now that the asshole humans are here.  You've deliberately avoided them and they've had the decency not to fucking bother you.  
  
Unlike your kismesis, who's been re-sending _ fuck you_ every two minutes - hmm, he must've downloaded a script - but that's basically par for the course.  
  
The variously-personed noises stopped fucking shouting and whinging at you a few days ago through the intercom next to your locked transportalizer - your response to  _that_ fucking nonsense was ear plugs, everyone could settle the fuck down as far as you were concerned.  Hormones and awkward confessions and tears are flying thick in the air now that you've all basically hit the unfortunately sexual part of puberty.  You are  _not_ interested.  
  
And you sure as fuck don't want to run into FF and AG.  
  
It might be easier to cope with that if you had a moirail, but you don't really want to try to resume your pale fumbling with AA and KK's pretty happily taken.  It's painfully awkward to bring that shit up, for one thing, and it would leave you with two relationships, which is either not enough or too many.  To balance it out you'd need an auspistice, and the prospects are not exactly pretty, so.  Hah.  Why bother, right?  It's not like you want your relationship with Eridan to get that intense, anyway.  He's needy.  It's totally black to deny him.    
  
It's definitely not that you're an antisocial piece of introverted shit who fails at relationships.  It's fine.  He's not gonna wake up one night and stop hating you.  
  
\- oh, the code's done.  2weet.    
  
... fuck yes.  Works like a dream.  This is the thrill of _victory._  Talking to Eridan right now would only ruin the mood and piss you off, wouldn't it?  And it'd be easy, in this rush, to just fucking smack the shit out of him.  Right across the face.  His stupid fucking face offends you, just looking at it, with its long eyelashes and sickly purple-ash pallor and its perpetual angry grimace that only gets uglier when he sees you.  You'd backhand him before he could even get mouthy - he's guaranteed to get mouthy, he knows it pisses you off like nothing else.  
  
... Crap.  You're kind of horny.  
  
Serendipitously, your intercom buzzes to life.  
 _  
"- gives a fuck, anyway.  Evenin,  Thollux.  I hope you were tryin to sleep."_  
  
\- and then there's a full minute of a noise that really resembles an alarm siren, and you slam your palms over your ears and hiss.  Speak of the fucking devil.  
  
You set your laptop aside and stumble to your feet, slamming your palm against the intercom.  "The fuck ith wrong with you, you thtupid pieth of shit, were you hatched retarded?" you spit into the mic.  Your blood is racing through your circulatory system at an accelerated pace.    
 _  
"- holy fuckin shit, someone kelp me, it's Sollux Fuckin Captor here to spray spit on us all, only he can't be fuckin bothered to leave his fuckin hive -"_  
  
Your stomach clenches, something in your gut twists violently and a snarl builds in your throat -  
  
You turn the intercom off.  
  
You try to control your breathing - there are little flecks of red and blue blossoming in the edges of your vision.    
  
No.  You're not going to do this.  You've been shut up here for ... over a perigee.  You've got a bad case of hive fever, you just need to get out of this room.    
  
(Feels like there are bees crawling all over your skin, you want to  _smash_ something, which is bad and you're not going to do it and fuck, your head is throbbing even worse, why the fuck did you talk to him?)  
  
You try to regain your balance, wobble over to your low work table, open your laptop again.  Come on, Captor, focus on something else.  You have to install your fucking awesome new program on everyone's computer - one of your testers has both variants of the humans' operating systems, neatly partitioned in two, you wrote a brilliant translation program -  
  
(Insulting your  _lisp_.  Really, Ampora?  Running out of slop in the thinkpan?  He's off his game.  You don't want to rip him to pieces, literally or figuratively.  You'll deal with him later.)  
  
\- you hear the transportalizer in your antechamber hiss.  
  
Your bloodpusher thuds.  
  
He fucking _ broke in._  
  
(Your hands are quivering with rage on your keys.  How _fucking dare_ he, the disrespectful piece of shit, how  dare he come in here - how dare he invade your space like this - no, stop, fuck, don't rise to it.)  
  
Your thinkpan is sloshing around.  What the fuck, you can hear his boots clicking incredibly quietly, he's not - normally his entrances are all bombastic lame-ass shitty movie entrances, hipster supervillain vomit.  You hear him pause in front of the door to your work room (of course he knows where to go, fuck, you hate that he knows where you'll be, it's your fucking respiteblock, can't you get some fucking  respite ?) and you think - the dull white noise of the ventilation is not quite enough to mask the soft noise of him cracking his knuckle as he clenches a fist.  
  
He doesn't knock.  
  
He's wearing a black overcoat and some other typical bullshit, but no rings, and he's staring at you with an expression so flat and stony it almost cools you off, for a second.  Eridan Ampora has shut the fuck up, for once, and his face is fucking unreadable, his limbs are disturbingly still, like he's waiting for something.  It's fucking weird.  
  
"The fuck do you want," you spit out, all venom, spine rigid.  You're sure your face is broadcasting precisely how pissed off and murderous you feel right now.    
  
He doesn't snap back immediately, just takes a few graceful steps forward, places a hand casually on his hip, cocks it minutely.  His face is still a weird, frozen mask, and his eyes are the sharpest fucking daggers you have ever seen.  Expression?  Subzero.  He fucking radiates disdain and something, something you can't quite place -  
  
"What, I interrupt your fuckin cryin session?" he asks, brazenly.  He remains unnaturally still.  What the fuck is he doing here, breaking and entering and being halfway to _fucking_ _polite with you_?  
  
"Waxing pale, Ampora?" you sneer, forcing yourself to look back at your laptop, pretending to type.  Fuck if you'll give him anything to go on.  You're not in the fucking mood anymore -  
  
He moves, crossing his arms, and you have to look at him again, instinctively.  He waits until he's sure he has your full attention before he saunters another two steps forward, the most  _disgustingly smug_ grin slowly oozing across his face like a goddamn oil slick, and you're furious because he's here, in your room, uninvited, and you don't know what the fuck he's  _playing_ at \- you can't figure it out, what's he doing, it's at the edge of your senses -  
  
"Know what you are, Sol?" he says, curtly, abruptly.  The tiniest of fucking tremors is running through his arms, he's close enough for you to catch it, but his eyes are the same unnatural still blades, frozen and watching you for something.  
  
You don't dignify that with an answer.  (Your claws are unsheathing, spasmodically, into your palms.  It's the only thing keeping you from punching the shit-eating grin off his face.)  The fuck, _the fuck,_ the fuck, what is he doing, why is he  here , what's - you almost -  
  
 _"Boring," _ he whispers, the word falling like ashes, and  you _fucking smell it._  
  
Your room typically smells of honey and your sweat and static electricity and the ozone-like odor of your honeycombs, a room over.  
  
Eridan Ampora smells like _ sex _ .  He _fucking_ _ reeks of it._  
  
Your heart has become grinding, shuddering staccato.  You can't hear what he's saying in the roar your blood is making, his lips are moving, but - your nostrils flare, your mind is on fire, you are trying to place _-_ _ Feferi.  
  
... Vriska, Tavros._ _  
  
Equius, Nepeta, Karkat,_ _**AA ** -_  
  
\- You are an atom bomb.    
  
He fucked them, in succession, some of the scents are older.  He fucked them and then he _ came here to gloat, this was the only relationship you had that wasn't a complete fucking disaster, this was your fucking constant, he -_  
  
You cannot bear up under the fucking cataclysm, you're vibrating with hate.  You see only red and blue swirling in your periphery - the air around you is shrieking and you are only half aware of the fact that you are floating upwards, dull roaring crackle everywhere.  
  
He is mouthing  nothing, frozen like a hopbeast facing the barrel of a cannon, and you can fucking _smell him_ and smell his utter terror and arousal and  _all those people he pailed_ , the pheromones are laughing/mocking/screaming at you and you can't fucking shut the _stench out, he brought it in here, into the only place you had left to -_ _  
_  
"- fucking _ whore _ ," you wheeze out, like shattering glass, and the door to the room cements itself shut.  You are almost blind with your rage and hurt and unadulterated, _painful_ _ hating him_ , you can barely breathe, your laptop is rattling on the tabletop -  
  
His hand twitches two centimeters to the left.    
  
It is all the movement necessary to set you off.  You are Sollux, the destroyer of worlds.  
  
The tall thin troll is on the floor beneath you, slammed down so hard he's screaming in pain - blue to wrench his wrists down, red to rip his clothes off in one snap of your thoughts, the tearing noise like the tearing sound of muscle and flesh - coat, shirt, pants, everything a shredded ruin in the corner, leaving welts as you tear it away - _he won't stop fucking_ _ screaming ,  like he has any right -_  
  
Red flays the flesh of his chest, your hands are stripping your pants off, fumbling in your absolute wrath - your hate is a bolt straight down your spine and through your bulges, hard as fucking knives.  
  
\- hyperventilating, you can't fucking breathe, your chest is so tight -  
  
" - Sol -" he whimpers, and you are on him, you have him pinioned with your churning brain, and your left hand settles around his throat like a vise, severely limiting his air.  Finally a little fucking quiet.  You are seething a blur of red and blue around your head, whipping your hair like a demented halo, your mouth a fucking agonized silent scream as you gulp in air -  
  
His bulge is curled down defensively over his nook.  With your right hand you pull it roughly away -  _should be fucking grateful you don't rip it off should fucking kiss your feet for the favor __-_ and, positioning yourself, shove yourself, one at a time, inside of him without ceremony.  
  
Eridan arches his back off the floor, in agony, he's fairly dry - you are incandescent, you don't fucking care if the rough friction hurts you, you only care to hurt him.  He can't scream.  His lips are mouthing silently at the air.  Something dark and sick and horrid inside of you is _ gleeful _ with satisfaction at the terror in his eyes.    
  
His wrists and ankles might as well be bolted to the floor - you don't even have to concentrate to keep him down, it comes easily to you, you want - _need_ \- to hold him down, and your powers purr to do it for you.  Your hands are free to do as they please - you dig your thumb a little harder into his throat, feeling at his voicebox and its (flimsy, crushable) cartilaginous protection.  You score  stripes down his front with your claws and burn lines into his back with your  _red_ _rage_ , panting, mania making you grin.  He's thrashing involuntarily, he can't escape you, can't escape anything you do to him, sweat and tears and spit running down his skin, every muscle helpless - gills fluttering in useless spasms.  
 _  
\- you are going to fuck him until he never smells like anything but you, ever again, everyone who ever sees or smells him will know he belongs to you, you won't let him leave you, won't let anyone touch him again, won't let him eat or drink or_ _**breathe** without your consent -_  
  
"Mine," you croak, your throat so ragged from the war within you that you sound utterly fucking insane.  
  
His eyes go black.  
  
You settle both hands around his neck, and begin to move your hips.  
  
You're slow, dragging yourself out and plunging into him with excruciating precision.  He's a little wet, now - you don't look, don't particularly care, your eyes are fixed on his, nailed to his fucking traitorous bitch face.  He doesn't look away, keeps staring until his eyes begin to roll back into his skull without his meaning to - you let him take a single breath, and then tighten your grip once more, crushing deep purple bruises into his elegant throat over and over and over again.  You only regret you can't beat him, too.  
  
The crashing riot inside you settles into a predictable, nearly tidal rhythm, the rage swelling up and abating a little with every slow, violent minute murdered.  In; his hips flinch away from your girth and the stench of his adrenaline-sweat gets a little stronger, his eyes narrow, his face is a flushed silent whimper of pain.  Out; his jaw goes slack, his hips try to follow yours, the pain in his eyes is sheer ungodly desolation.  Every ten thrusts or so you let him take a breath, because you are not killing him, you are torturing him, you are  _teaching a fucking lesson -  
_  
Time stretches, bends.    
  
Your crackling power lazily scores over the same wounds again and again, twists into them, makes him jerk away and into another punishing cut.  You spill his deep violet blood on your floor, rich and delicious when you bother to lick beads of it off his chest, spattered and slick on your arms and shirt.  Eventually he is too broken even to flinch away, and you relent a little - you don't want him to bleed out or escape you in unconsciousness.  You demand him to be _ present_ , and he obeys you with his eyes, always bringing them to meet yours, no matter how heavy.  
  
He is shivering, shaking almost continuously now, lips trembling in a way that has nothing to do with asphyxiation.  You can see him struggle to keep his eyes open to your gaze as his orgasm hits him - you feel it splashing against your hips, note how slick and wet and shuddery his flesh feels against yours.  
  
You stop drawing his blood, then, but he keeps trembling, exhausted, tears leaking slowly out of his pinned eyes as you fuck him.  He is a wreck.  He's your wreck, there's a faint, soft, terrible little smile softening the edges of his airless mouth.  (In.  Out.  Same slow, punishing drag.  Every single part of hum is vibrating like a wire around you, it feels -)  
  
He hates you so much he adores you.  
  
Something wrenches, slows down in your chest.  You're not sure what prompts it, but this time, when you relax your hands, you give him air from your lungs, sealing your mouth over his and (gently) breathing into him.  He blinks, rapidly, as you break off the kiss.  He manages a low, tremulous moan, before your fingers slowly tighten again.  
  
You like it, you do it again, every five thrusts now forcing him to take air from your mouth - his mouth is open to you, tongue pliant and subdued when you slip, briefly, into him.  ( _ Only my air.  Only my touch.  Look only at me. _)  Your hands around his neck anchor you.  
  
He cries, silently, staring up into your eyes, and you -  
  
You hiss, and your hands spasm a final time as you flood him.  The fury ebbs out of you - the psychic bolts pinning him down slowly fade into nonexistence, and you finally slump down on top of him, letting go, letting him breathe.  (Only because you allow it, you think dully to yourself.)  He begins to cough, a little, and pants, taking deep drags of oxygen, his chest rising and falling beneath you; you settle your hands, wearily, on his horns, keep his head in place.  
  
" - mine," you mumble, exhausted, your anger melting out of you.  "Never pull that shit again."  
  
In answer, he makes a rasping little noise of protest - you snort, slump down, relax in the afterglow.  
  
He smells  _yours_ and it's a fucking relief.  You're oozing out of him, and his blood, sweat, tears, snot, and drool flood every one of your senses.    
  
... that's.    
  
... wait.  
  
No.  
  
... that's all you can fucking smell, you and him, what -  
  
A sense of unease freezes in your stomach.  You press your face into his chest, smelling him, desperate for something to confirm what you smelled earlier, but there's  nothing .  It doesn't - he can't have sweated it off, _pheromones don't fucking_ _ work like that  -_  
  
There's fucking horror growing in you, as your capacity to actually fucking think returns.  Keep calm, don't fucking panic, he's had enough of you flipping your shit tonight - you prop yourself up on your elbows, to check his face -  
  
Eridan is staring, with glassy, distant eyes, at the shredded heap of his clothes in the corner.  
  
 _...  fuck._  
  
"Eridan," you say, and he hums a little, his limbs twitching.  "Eridan."  
  
He looks at you, and his lips move like he's trying to talk, but he  _can't_.  He can only manage a horrible choked noise that sounds fucking painful to produce.  His arms are legs are splayed precisely where you left them - the joints are already swelling, you  _sprained _ them, possibly broke them, he can't fucking move them - you start to fucking shake, press your thumb over his lips, desperate and horrified.  What have you _ done_ ?  
  
\- fuck, fuck, you -  
  
\- very, very slowly, and gingerly, he turns his head the tiniest degree into your palm, and nicks your skin with one of his teeth.  Then - your chest hurts - he licks your hand, gently lapping up the blood he drew.  His eyes are, still, fixed on yours - half-lidded, content; he rests his lips and cheek against your fingers.  
  
If you strain your senses in the direction of his clothes, you can catch a whiff of the sex-smells you picked up earlier, your room isn't that big and they didn't get hurled very far -  
 _  
He did this on fucking_ _ purpose _.    
  
 _He fucking planned on this._  He didn't fuck anyone, he just - somehow, through extortion or begging or whining, got them to agree to this fucking stupid scheme and painted his coat - _black_ coat - with their slurry.  He was wearing a white shirt beneath it - some of the colors bled through onto it, you can see that now.  
  
"- did - n't," he croaks, tired, drawing you out of the chaos in your head, nipping at your thumb.    Didn't fuck anyone else.  Didn't really do it.    
  
"Fuck," you say, helplessly.  He's trying to fucking _ reassure_ you, like you really needed him to explain the plot to you.  "I know.  You didn't."  
  
He nods, a little.  His neck is a collar of dark violet bruises.  You did this to him, you went way fucking overboard, all you've done up until now is _bite_ each other for fuck's sake.  
  
(And oh, fuck, the worst is that he's so fucking _ gorgeous_ like this, when you've ruined him - the way it makes your blood sing, happy, to marvel at the welts on his body, that you gave him those injuries, that he's in pain for you - he is so strong, so arrogant, so ferocious, and you've utterly wrecked him, he's yours to wreck -)  
  
Shit.    
  
All right.  Try to fucking salvage this.  
  
"You were trying to provoke me," you try.  You'll be damned if you lisp now, you enunciate with all the painful precision you can.  He nods a little into your hand, blinking, still catching his fucking breath.    
  
"You... I was ignoring you."  He nods again, eyes narrowing a little with upset, almost peevish.  You struggle for words.  You aren't good at this.  "... You can't pull something like this again," you tell him, firm and solid, using your free hand to pet his hair a little.  "It's not fucking safe, okay?  I could have fucking _killed_ you.  If you want something like this, you need... you need to fucking talk to me about it, not try to manipulate me into it."  
  
He stares up at you glassily, solemnly - wrenches a few coughs from his throat.  His voice, when he manages to produce intelligible sound, is a barely-audible whisper.    
  
 _"Tried,"_ he says, hopelessly.  
  
That's -  
  
You remember the messages you deleted, and guilt rushes over you like water.  
  
"Fuck, I'm sorry," you babble, eyes stinging, though for some reason you can't fucking cry.  "I'm.  I'm tho fucking thor-  _fuck. _ "  
  
He licks your hand again.  "Liked it," he whispers.  
  
"I fucking damaged you," you hiss, claws unsheathing involuntarily - you're upset - he hisses a little as they scratch him, and glares at you.  
  
"Do it again," he argues, croaking in a way that's kind of painful to hear.  
  
... _fuck,_ fuck, you hate his stubborn, stupid ass.  
  
"We'll.  Okay.  We'll talk about it," you promise him, and you fucking mean it.  You love hurting him, that's fucking  normal, but _damaging_ him like this is fucking insane.  You don't know if you can handle how horrified you are by yourself right now, and the thought of doing it again any time soon is nauseating.    
  
"... hate you, Sol," he murmurs, and grins up at you like a fucking lovestruck idiot.  You melt.  
  
"Shut the fuck up, your voith ith painful to hear," you snap at him, peeling yourself off of him.  "I'm taking you to my recuperacoon and you're going to fucking _ retht. _"  
  
He nods, a little, sleepy and tired and worn-out, blinking wearily into your eyes.  You want to hate him forever, for the rest of your lives.  
  
So.  You need to be better at this.  You can't keep - shutting yourself off for perigees at a time. It was stupid to think you could.    
  
Once you've managed to get him settled in with you, and sleeping, you stay awake for a long time, watching him breathe in and out, suspended in your slime, tracing little spades on his skin with your fingertips.  Next time will be better.  You'll figure it out, somehow.  You're Sollux Captor and you're a fucking genius.    
  
Next time.  
  
You nod off, still cradling him in your arms, and you don't remember that you were going to upgrade the computers for another three days.


	2. flip that shit turnways

It's pretty difficult to actually have a legitimate conversation with Eridan about limits and boundaries and actually, barf, Talk About Our Relationship, because every single fucking attempt quickly devolves into hate snogs.  Which are reassuring, and normal, and fully-clothed.  Only the merest slivers of conversation manage to get through:  
  
" -if you weren't such a fuckin' recluse, Captor, if the slightest hint a -"    
" - not askin' you to change, fuck, I just -"  
" - you fuckin' need me, nookstain, don't carp to me about bein' intrusive, you can't recall how to feed yourshellf proper -"  
  
Little points of relevant data.  Loathsome, irredeemable piece of utter shit that he is/was for pulling that stunt, you have to admit it got him what he wanted.  Which turned out being precisely what you wanted, only not on your terms, which grates on you something fierce.  
  
(KK had the decency to actually fucking talk to people and tell them not to be fucking assholes about it.  You're sure someone would have said something to you in the nights after your ... dalliance, otherwise.  CT can't look at you without spontaneously drenching himself in sweat.  No one's said anything, but FF and AC seem weirdly pleased with you, which you find both creepy and confusing.)  
  
After the trauma of the experience had worn off, you have to admit, your first black sexual experience actually went pretty well.  Eridan is pretty fucking smug about it, the bulgechafing pus blister - he probably limped a little harder around AG, winced with a little more feeling, because hysterical passive-aggressive melodrama is just how he operates.    
  
AG, AC, KK and FF aside...  You're not sure how anyone else has reacted, because you've been trying to trawl through the lingering archives left in everyone's browser caches for useful advice on how to fucking cope with this romance bullshit.  KK's was your first bet, but all you managed to find were some miscellaneous concupiscent ask/answer blogs and way too many .pdf files of poorly-written erotica.  
  
KK seems to think you should talk to him, or at the very least talk to  someone .  Your immediate reaction to that sentiment was to send him a virus that keeps his screen color-inverted and rotated ninety degrees to the left, but after some soul-searching hours spent playing mindless flash games, you've internalized the fact that you have no idea how to solve this problem.  You don't need your hand held.  You just need some perspective from someone who isn't an utter fucking lunatic or an awkward ex.  
  
Which is how you find yourself messaging GA.  You feel kind of bad about it, but she's auspisticed before.    
  
GA: I'm Not Entirely Certain I Will Be Of Help With This Particular Endeavor, But I Shall Attempt To Be Helpful And Elucidating With Regards To Your Perplexing Situation  
TA: uhh  
TA: o.k.  
TA: ..  
TA: giiven that AG ii2 the po2ter grub for caliigiinou2 feeliing2 gettiing wwiildly out of control and cau2iing everyone problem2, partiicularly anyone 2he'2 black for  
TA: how do ii not do that  
TA: agaiin  
GA: Perhaps A Clarification Of What, Precisely, Your Question Is, May Help?  
GA: Essentially You Seek To Understand How You May Fully Express Your Feelings Without Killing, Unduly Traumatizing, Or Crippling The Object Of Your Affections  
TA: that ju2t about 2ums it up  
TA: any iin2iight2  
TA: ii 2wear two god ii wiill block you iif you 2ugge2t any romance novel2  
GA:  ... Duly Noted  
GA:  Well  
GA:  Try To Think Of It This Way:  
GA:  There Are A Thousand Undiscovered Ways To Make Your Kismesis Cry    
GA:  Properly Tormenting Them Requires Just As Much Invention And Artifice As Wooing One's Matesprit  
GA:  You Have Bypassed Time-Consuming Courtship Procedures, So If You Are Serious About This Affair Continuing Successfully You Will Need To Culture Intimacy With One Another Through Artificial And Deliberate Means  
TA: breed 2ome ver2atiile relatiion2hiip viiru2e2 iin the petrii dii2h of hate  
GA: Precisely  
GA: It Is Easy For Relationships To Dissolve Once The Hormones Wear Off  
TA: that2 not goiing two be an ii22ue anytiime 2oon  
TA: 2orry, tmii  
GA: I Am Unoffended  
GA: Proper Black Torture Is A Field Of Creative Invention And Technical Skill, Sollux  
GA: I Am Confident In Your Abilities To Succeed  
TA: ..  
TA: thank2 c3<  
  
You realias GA as KN, in a display of ashen fondness that no one else will ever discover (because all of your passwords are at least a paragraph long, case-color-AND-style sensitive, and complicated as fuck) or comprehend properly (because no one else thinks realiasing someone is cute).    
  
It takes a while after that log for the creative pansauce to boil over, but KN's faith in you and your capacity to  actually not fucking suck at a relationship definitely speeds the process.  You are Sollux Captor.  You are fucking brilliant, and this is just another problem to solve.  
  
A little while after that self-aggrandizing mental proclamation and about halfway into plans for your spectacular retaliation, you realize that you are going to have to ask CT to borrow his sweaty power tools.  2hiit.  
  
-  
  
TA: 2up  
TA: lii2ten  
TA: ii need two borrow the oxyacetylene weldiing torch and 2ome 2crap metal and you're ba2iically rolliing iin a 2ea of tool2 and defiiled robotiic2 2o  
TA: cough em up 2on  
TA: and ii need the mini torch you u2e for 2olderiing and detaiil work, 2.  
CT: D--> What  
CT: D--> This is unprecedented  
CT: D--> How dare you have the temerity to take such an unapologetically impudent tone with your superior, sulphurous scum b100d  
TA: oh for fuck2 2ake can we 2kiip the part where you get uncomfortably arou2ed by my lowblood back2a22 and actually ju2t giive me the fuckiing tool2  
CT: D--> I never  
CT: D--> This is  
CT: D-->  
CT: D--> Not even the venerable miss Serket is aware that I have a pocket torch, Sollu%  
CT: D--> I am quite righteously disturbed by the suggestion that your filthy eyes have spent any amount of time lingering in the general area of my admittedly magnificent posterior  
CT: D--> And not aroused at all  
TA: 2iigh  
TA: fiine  
TA: iit wa2 the detaiiliing on AA'2 cha22ii2 ok  
TA: you  
TA: ** you diid a niice job on her haiir  
CT: D-->  
CT: D-->  
CT: D-->  
CT: D--> Oh.  
CT: D--> For what purposes, might I ask, do you intend to use my  
CT: D--> Equipment  
TA: DIID YOU HAVE TWO PUT IIT LIIKE THAT  
TA: re2piiteblock upgrade2  
CT: D--> Apologies.  However.  
CT: D--> Will your delicate lowb100ded hands not require protection from the flames and molten iron? I could lend you safety equipment as well.  
TA: ii'm a p2iioniic, dumba22  
TA: ii can kiick CA'2 a22 wiithout ever layiing a hand on hiim and that take2 con2iiderably le22 braiinpower than managiing a hiive  
TA: weldiing wont bee an ii22ue.  
CT: D--> e%  
CT: D-->  
CT: D--> e%cuse me  
CT: D--> i need a towel  
TA: GOD DAMN IIT  
  
Thankfully, after some frantic messaging, AC drops the 'equipment' off in a box at your transportalizer after sterilizing it in CT's autoclave for you.   She giggles and chirps about "helping out a furriend!" and "purr-lease, Sollux, this is what a meowrail does!", her obnoxious :3 emoticons practically audible, and you grimace and take the package.    
  
You still wince a little before you touch it.  
  
-  
  
In the immortal words of Troll Doctor Phil, revenge is a meal best served in seven courses to the gentle pitter-patter of your enemy's tears.  Troll Doctor Phil was a douchebag, but you appreciate this particular sentiment.  You're going to hatemance the shit out of Ampora.  His little stunt was a one-trick hoofbeast and yours has eight legs and jet engines.    
  
KN links you to a massive GAMEFAQ floating on a server in the abyssal froth of the Farthest Rings that has a really spectacularly thorough list of codes for alchemizing basically anything you could possibly want.  Unfortunately, your equipment was destroyed along with your session and you can't alchemize shit at the moment - it's more of a list of helpful suggestions.  That's all you really need, though.  Ideas are worth their weight in microscopic eight-bit data beetles; you're a geniiu2 and you can build anything you understand.    
  
The psychology behind Eridan Ampora's atrocious personality is an entertaining problem to pick apart as you keep your hands busy.  You let little matrices of half-formed theories and hypotheses curl fractral wreaths through your thinkpan as you work, the occasional nugget of insight forming the odd crystal here and there.  Fuck yeah, cry2tal2, best molecules.  
  
Half the job of writing a program involves knowing precisely what results you want to see; the other half is knowing how to turn that knowledge into a physical result.  You are slowly and carefully picking apart a foreign programming language, breaking apart every anomaly into patterns of data, waves and curves arcing through your skull sleeping and waking.  Math will, in time, yield to you.  When one miind exhausts itself, the other picks up the thread.  
  
You will discover his limits and rigorously note every asymptote until you arrive at a function, the infinitudes of a soul described and wreathed in  _f(x)._  
  
Two days after you decide to formally attack the problem of Eridan Ampora, KK sends you a tearful missive about how great it is you're making an effort to "understand" ED's "feelings".    
  
KK is pretty fucking clueless, huh.  
  
-  
  
Fact:  
  
Seadwellers have, in comparison to land trolls, more pressure-sensitive mechanoreceptors buried in the layers of their stratified epithelial tissues, as an evolutionary mechanism to defend against dangerous changes in water pressure.  
  
Conclusion:  
  
Bondage.  
  
Fact:  
  
Eridan, given the history of FLARPing and constant death-tempting and deliberately provocative nature, is an adrenaline junkie.  Pain and adrenaline are very closely biologically intertwined; the endogenous opiods, additionally, create an easy link to the pleasure/reward circuitry in the brain.  
  
Conclusion:  
  
Ye2222222222.  
  
Fact:    
  
Seadwellers are incredibly leery of fire, for obvious reasons.  
  
Conclusion:  
  
heheheheheheheheh.  
  
-  
  
TG: so  
TG: listen  
TG: aint gonna hold a gun to your pasty little nerd noggin and tell you you gotta take that bitch to prom  
TG: vegas style shotgun wedding teen pregnant mtv special  
TG: but are you planning on fucking our favorite hipster bitch any time soon  
TA: ii thought ii blocked you a22hole2  
TG: because hes gettin just shy of totally fucking insufferable  
TA: jegu2  
TA: before ii remotely explode your hu2ktop ii am compelled two a2k: how ii2 thii2 iin any conceiivable fa2hiion any of your bu2iine22  
TG: gotta keep the ragtag band of fruity miscreants together man gotta keep sir pinstriped skinny jeans loose and ready to roll for initiative  
TG: can town needs its dastardly caped crusader  
TG: slash morally ambiguous asshole antihero  
TG: slash rich asshole in a mansion stickin his crusty bejeweled thumbs into everyone elses problem pies and shrieking like a startled fruit bat when his dick gets pranked  
TG: like this little bat straight outta the amazon just fell ass over elbows into a fuckin roald dahl novel and he's flipping his shit over this massive fuckin peach gettin sweet air all up in his face  
TG: who put joker gas in the weed where the fuck did the talking beetle fiesta come from  
TG: hes the hero can town deserves bro hes simply the best there is  
TA: holy 2hiit  
TA: never 2peak two me agaiin  
  
* turntechGodhead's computer has EXPLODED! computers destroyed: 1/35  
  
TG: rude  
  
-  
  
It takes about a perigee and a half to build the shit you think is really important, and another half a perigee to build the rest.  The gadgets versus the simple set pieces of your elaborate schoolfeeding venture.  (He is gonna be  so  schoolfed.)  
  
On some level, you're aware-but-not-cognizant that you haven't been this excited about tinkering with shit and getting your hands dirty since before AA ... died.  You are aware that this is possibly the most exciting set of problems since calculus.  You are aware that you are actually fucking talking to people and responding to their messages and puzzling shit out and KK is bawling over your increasingly "healthy levels" of socialization, and you haven't even sent him any viruses for it.  
  
It's weird, how hating Eridan has sort of brought the rest of your life into sharper focus.  
  
One evening, after welding the finishing touches to your sculpture and patiently finishing it with oil, you realize that you are basically ready to roll and also you haven't checked your messages in a while. Oops.  You swear a gold streak as you wipe your hands off and get your laptop open.  
  
Sure enough, ED's online and you have about - thirty missed messages from him, shit.  
  
CA: wwhere the fuck havve you BEEN, you fuckin jackass  
TA: 2orry ii cant hear you over the 2ound of how awe2ome ii am  
CA: that aint evven fuckin FUNNY stop snickerin to yourself you pompous fuckin dick  
CA: im so fuckin pissed off right now  
TA: that2 hot  
CA: fuck you  
CA: fuck your seahorseshit  
CA: ivve been tryin to fuckin talk to you for wweeks an wweeks noww an you just dont fuckin givve a carp  
TA: iim 2orry when diid ii a2k you two tell me all a-boat your feeliing2  
CA: ok that wwasnt fuckin funny either  
TA: you laughed admiit iit  
CA: oh my cod FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU  
TA: if youre 2o pii22ed off  
TA: get over here  
CA:  
CA: sear-iously?  
CA: wwoww i didnt evven havve to fuckin break in this time howw fuckin hospitable a you sol its almost like youre a regular troll wwith a sense a basic fuckin decency  
TA: your rage ii2 pretty fuckiing amu2iing fii2hliips  
TA: you're gonna HATE what ii've got iin 2tore for you  
CA:  
CA: wwhy are you bein nice all of a sudden  
CA: oh my cod youre breakin up wwith me  
TA: jegu2.  clam your tiit2, fucka22.  
TA: ii 2tiill hate you.  
CA: wwhale you dont reely ACT like it its not like youvve been a fuckin hatey-carrion bird peckin my face outta pure deovvoted blackrom feelins  
CA: after takin my vvirginity  
TA: oh for fuck2 2ake  
TA: two thiing2: iim pretty 2ure you were al2o takiing miine  
TA: and  
TA: ii wa2 bu2y  
CA: doin wwhat chafin your fuckin bulges  
TA: correctiion: engaged iin exten2iive preparatiion to chafe your2  
TA: <3<  
CA: oh.  
CA: damn it sol howw do you alwways make me feel like a fuckin asshoal  
CA: sea you soon then <3<  
  
-  
  
When you unlock the (repaired) transportalizer, Eridan practically skips into your room, eyes bright and high spots of pale purple annoyance staining his cheeks.  The moment he sees you, his eyes narrow; he reflexively bites his lower lip, staring at your mouth; he hates you, jegus, he really hates you, check iit out.   He's not wearing anything plush or expensive - he's learned better than that, you tend to ruin the pricey shit - just a simple shirt and jeans, dyed indigo, his sign across his chest in black.  (And the rings, of course.  He's a fucking magpie.  Hatched To Glitter, ugh.)  
  
He kisses like he's trying to make you uncomfortably grossed out.   He fails.  
  
You are not and never have been fond of tactile response.  You prefer to type to people, keep them at least an arm's length away, keep them out of range of your head problems and your dickish personality issues.  Physical contact is basically sort of pleasant for you, sometimes, but you're honestly happy without it.  Holding FF's hand, throwing shit at KK.  That's enough.  
  
Eridan is vastly different.  
  
He's straddling your lap, arms around your shoulders, panting in between incredibly desperate kisses.  He is so fucking responsive it makes you feel kinda guilty, all over again, for how badly you waled into him - even if it took him less than a perigee to heal.  All you have to do is stick your hands under his shirt, caress the ridge of his lowest gills, and he squirms like a worm on a hook, whining a little.  His arousal turns you on.  
  
"Fuck, Sol," he hisses at you, semi-dazed, clutching your face with his decked-out hands, and you wonder how anyone could possibly take this fucker seriously, because look at him.  Look at him shaking for you.  "Listen - you can't -"  
  
"Shut up," you suggest, enunciating carefully.  
  
"- can't keep fuckin'  _doin'_ this to me, I go fuckin' crazy, an you  _know_ I don't have a morayeel -"  
  
"That pun wath fucking thtupid -"  
  
" - it's really messin' me up, Sol," he says, a touch of the plaintive edging into his voice, and his emotional distress is ... pretty fucking cute, you have to admit.  It's a little unhealthy and kind of embarrassing to find  all of Eridan's pain attractive, but you're young and you're dumb and you're head-over-heels in spades for him, so.  Fuck iit.    
  
"Thorry," you say, quietly, and you mostly mean it.    
  
He's actually sort of gorgeous, beneath the ugly hipster glasses and the sneering and the attitude problem.  He's got the sort of body that gets posted via stalkercam pics on quadrantchan in creepy masturbation threads (first bitchy comment: not a legit tyrian, totally hemoshopped): long, trim, athletic, elegant horns.  His face and his teeth are almost flawlessly symmetrical, chiseled and aristocratic, SNOB written in every line of his DNA.  He's unfairly attractive even when he's dripping snot and howling in pain.  
  
It's the kind of face someone might spend a few hours turning into a .gif purely for the sake of whacking off to it.  He's the sort of absurd pretty that belongs on the other side of a computer screen, and it gives you an ego trip to remind yourself: Eridan Ampora is flesh and blood.  He is three-dimensional and in your respiteblock and he wants you to fuck him so bad he's grinding down in your lap, whining for whatever you condescend to give him.  
  
Thii2 ii2 2uch a fuckiing  _ru2h._  
  
"We're doing thith my way," you tell him, palming the curve of his ass.    
  
His eyelids drop to half-mast, pupils dilating as he stares down at you.  You watch him lick his already-wet (already-bite-swollen) lips.  
  
Then he punches you in the fucking jaw.  
  
You're gonna make this fucker miserable.  
  
The skirmish lasts for about ten minutes.  You only lash out with your psionics when you're forced to, which actually happens pretty often because Ampora may be fucking moronic but he's also pretty damn ripped.  He gets a hand in the back of your hair, smashes your nose into the table - yanks your head back, kissing you eagerly, licking up the blood, and you sink your teeth into his lip, spill a little purple, hear him groan.  You both accumulate nicks, scratches, friction burns from slamming against the floor - you're both sweating with exertion, and your attacks are getting mutually sexual.  
  
Both of your shirts are in tatters - he slams you down onto your back, scrapes lines in a slash down your chest, his stupid tight pants straining at the crotch.  He's panting, staring wildly at your blood as it rises and beads against your skin, murmurs: "Oh..." as he stares at it.  He's incredibly far gone, lost in a fog of arousal and gently throbbing pain.    
  
You decide you're done being mauled, and knee him hard in the bone sheath.  
  
"  _\- fuck,_ " he whimpers, dropping on you like a deadweight - he's fucking heavy, all muscle and hair gel and arrogance.  " _Ow_ ."  
  
"Shhhhh," you say, mocking.  He's gone a little pale with pain.  You roll him off, slump down on top of him,  palm his decidedly less stiff bulge through his pants.  "Shall I kith it better?"  
  
"Keep your fuckin  _hideous mutant teeth_ away from my junk, Captor," he whimpers, like he's seriously ill at the thought, and his hips jerk up under your palm.    
  
(You realize you're grinning like a fucking idiot.  Oh, you want him.  You aren't even angry, you just fucking hate him, it makes you so stupidly  _happy_ how much he hates you.)  
  
He thinks this is it, you can read the lack of tension in his face, the easy way he returns your kisses, how he groans.  Frotting on the floor and some biting, how fucking lame.  He smashed you into pieces last time, you're not letting him get off before you blow his fucking mind.  
  
You stare down at him and think: There are two poetic, divergent ways for a neuron to be forced to transmit an electric potential down the myelinated axon, causing a release of neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft.    
  
The first method is to blast the dendrites with a massive, brief stimulus.    
  
The second is to gradually stack increasing stimuli over time, until the receptor site is slowly overwhelmed.  
  
2ciience, biitch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it turned into three chapters
> 
> i hope you find the upcoming sex both vague and ominous ;o


	3. double mobius reacharound

It's a throbbing in your chest, the heat of something smug and spiteful and drunkenly warm.  Feels like your bloodpusher is pumping honey and electricity into every inch of you.  Emotions transform into physical sensations, hungry impulses - too many things you want to do to him, too many ways you want to see him snap.  Your irritation is like an itch all over your skin and Eridan (broken) is the only thing that offers any relief.  It's not overpowering; it's just _ insistent_, like the hum of your computers' cooling fans.  
  
You feel omnipotent like this, watching him squirm and gasp and shiver beneath you - you're kneeling on his upper arms, pinning him down with pure physics.  It's better this time - you feel stable, your feelings and your powers will stay under your control.   He, on the other hand...  
  
You're going to make him  lose his mind.  Your bulges squirm, and your face feels hot.    
  
You smack him across the face, open-palm: you're gratified by the sharp harshness of the noise, the way his head snaps to the left.  The best way to ensure a proper stinging slap is to twist the wrist a little immediately before impact; transfer all your momentum to the surface of his flesh.    
  
For harder, deeper damage, your mental halting zone would be about an inch below the surface.  (... Later.  Not on the face.)  
  
You force him to look back up at you - the angle of his sight starts at your crotch- by yanking on his horns with a small twitch of your psionics.  (His breath catches in his throat, his eyes go glassy - he fucking loves it when you drag him around with a power he can't combat or avoid, and it makes some part of you twitch with emotion that he finds your mutation arousing.)  Then you backhand his face to the right, for the sake of symmetry, and - he moans.  
  
Not because he's trying to sound like a porn star - he's too fucking cocky to want to make noises like this - but because he can't help it.  
  
God, he's 2o fuckiing hot.    
  
"I'm bathically gonna have my way with you," you inform him.    
  
"I hate you," your bitch whines, panting, mouth open, and continues to thrash ineffectively beneath you.  
  
You grin.  
  
-  
  
Item number one: Cuffs.  They're designed to link each wrist to the elbow of the opposite arm, folded behind his back.  It'll force one shoulder slightly higher than the other, but it won't be too uncomfortable.    
  
Eridan wriggles and shrieks and curses at you - _fuckin landwellin perverted piece a shit_ - until you get a hand on the back of his neck, claws extended, digging into him like pins.  "Quit fucking thquirming," you order him, your powers weighting him down as he attempts to get away.  
  
"Don't fuckin tell me what to do, Sol," he growls, craning his neck around to glare up at you.  He manages to kick you in the back of your head with his heel before you get both of his arms into the cuffs, and then pauses.  You can see his muscles straining against the metal, testing the strength of his bonds - he is starting to sweat, and his breath goes harsh and uneven as he realizes he's trapped.  
  
"Calm down," you croon.  
  
"... Fuck me," he whimpers, pupils dilated so wide they practically swallow the sclera.  He smells incredibly turned on.  
  
"Later," you murmur, rudely ignoring his surrender, and he _ snarls_, baring his teeth at you.  
  
Step two is frogmarching him into another room of your respiteblock, the one with your horizontal cushion platform and side table.  It's basically a second work room - your laptop is on  the table, actually.  Also on the table: other shit you made this perigee.  You had to run a magnet over the area, you had a shit ton of filings everywhere.  Hopefully it'll be worth it.    
  
"The fuck is _ that_," Eridan pants, staring at the raised T bar bolted to the table.  
  
" _That_ ith a creative and entertaining alternative to chairth," you say, and shove him face-first on top of it.  Despite his typical exaggerated grace, he can't balance as well without his arms and hasn't learned to compensate for it yet.  He topples easily.  An elbow to the back of the neck keeps him still.   
  
You didn't want to ruin the psychological terrorism of the experience by taking measurements for his neck and legs, so you dealt with the issue creatively.  The frame of the T is metal, but the rings at the ends attatch to belts, so you can adjust them on the spot.  You get the collar fitted around his neck first, firmly attatching him to the frame - you added a shoulder rest out of basic decency, to keep him from strangling himself.  
  
"I'll fuckin' murder you," Eridan pants, shivering, legs hanging over the edge of the table (which, you note, he's rubbing up against.  The way he smells is driving you fucking crazy.)  "This is fuckin' undignified."  
  
"That'th kinda the point," you agree, and  strip the rest of his clothes off.  
  
... he has a  _really nice _ ass, holy shit.  Have you ever taken the time to appreciate it before?  You don't think so.  He's already aroused as hell, nook wet, bulge curling and writhing against the edge of the table, making these incredibly filthy  _slurping_ noises - smells so fucking good it's dizzying.  He's so helpless like this, at your not-very-tender mercies.  It's kind of obscene, how hot to fuck he is.  
  
There are rests for his shins, too, once you've lashed each leg into place with a belt right above the knee.  You bothered to add some padding to those rests.  You don't want him putting any weight on his knees; it'd be the wrong kind of painful, and it'd give him too much leverage to move around.  You had wanted to tie his feet up, too - attatch them to the back of his thighs - but with the position he's in, head down, ass in the air, it'd cut off circulation.  So you scrapped that idea.  
  
You want to delicately control every iota of his discomfort: you aren't gonna let his fucking feet fall asleep.  
  
Now that you've wrestled his body into position, you take a moment to enjoy the view.  Priceless.  His chest is heaving, and from this angle you can see up his gill slits whenever they reflexively shudder open; his back is forced, by the length of the bar, into an elegant arch, shoving his ass up.  
  
His nook is about bulge-height, which works out like fucking poetry.  You weren't sure how awkward it would be to fuck him like this.  
  
"Hey there, gorgeouth," you murmur, and run a finger over his soaking nook, claws sheathed.  
  
"God," he chokes out - his nook convulses dramatically, like it's trying to suck you in.    
  
"I prefer Captor," you say, and flick your finger sharply against the base of his bulge.  
  
Out of shock at the sudden contact, he tries to jerk away from your touch - then he discovers he can't, and makes a sound halfway between misery and bliss, a strangled desperate moan that crests and breaks into little sobbing whines.  " _Sol, fuck._ "  
  
"Whoa.  Are you trying to tell me you're interethted in  _thith_?" you mock him, punctuating the _ this_ by grinding your clothed crotch against his bare skin.  
  
"Sol, please," he pants.  He can't turn his head to look at you, has no idea what kind of face you're making.  You're smirking like a first-class douchebag, for the record.   _Thii2 ii2 2o amu2iing._ _  
_  
"I thought I wath _ boring_, Eridan ," you hiss at him, trying to keep the smirk out of your voice, keep him on edge and guessing at your mood.  (Pleased.  Aroused.  Incredibly into this stupid fuckass.)    
  
"I take it back," he whimpers.  You watch his shoulders quiver.    
  
"... Nithe try," you say.  "A pluth for effort."  
  
Then, just for the hell of it, you spank him, one viciously hard open-palm strike.  His ass is right there, and opportunity knocks but once.  Opportunity says:  _This fine ass bruises purple, check it out._  You wouldn't be an engineer if you refused the call of Science, right?  
  
Oh, look, the results are in: one perfect handprint.  Beautiful.  
  
You knead the hot, forming bruise, and he yowls and shudders, and you kind of really, really want to spank him some more - but first things first.  
  
The cuffs and the bar were large, ugly, easy projects; you did them first, while you were still getting the hang of the oxy-acetylene torch.    
  
Project number three was an adjustable ring - still fairly simple, but it had to be able to expand to - there - fit over the widest part of his bulge, and contract very, very delicately around the base, right under the ridge of the bone sheath.  It prevents him from retracting it, and it angles his bulge at the tabletop, deprived of any stimulus unless you choose to touch it yourself.    
  
You had to test it on yourself to see if it worked to control orgasm: there are three small nubs on the inside of the ring that press the necessary tubes shut, and you had to solder them on and grind them off five times before it worked properly.  You just have two tentacles, not two slurry sacs; so it works fine on your kismesis, who appears to find it uncomfortable and degrading.  Awe2ome.  
  
"-  fuckin \- what the fuck did you  do," he howls, trying even harder to wriggle out of his bondage in an unconscious attempt to relieve the pressure.  He's not even deliberately trying to escape: his entire body is in rebellion, thrashing and convulsing and  enraged.  His hands clench uselessly behind his back, unable to grip anything.  
  
The fourth experimental project you worked on owes its existence to the GAMEFAQ KN linked you - at least, the theoretical underpinnings, anyway.  It's a thick ring  - more like a tube, really - designed to press him apart from the inside and keep his nook open.  You slide your fingers in, loosen him up a little and check for the exact depth of his internal ridging before you gently push it in.    
  
(He's not quite hyperventilating, he's breathing in harsh, furious gasps.  He only sounds angrier the farther you press it.  For a second, you're distracted by how it feels to have him clenching down on you.)  
  
There'a a long, flexible hook attatched; this extends out of his nook and up - well, technically down - his waist, pressed flat against his stomach.  It'll keep invention #4 from being pulled any farther inside of him; you have it at the precise depth you want it.  It's about half a centimeter away from the first ridge of nerve endings that, when stimulated, cause activity in the pleasure/reward centers of the brain.    
  
You switch it on, and it starts to vibrate.   
  
Eridan screams, back arching even more dramatically.  He's clenching down around the vibrator, voice breaking on the high arcs of his wails.  It's not in the right spot, not deep enough, to actually offer him  any fucking relief whatsoever : it's maddening.  You know this because you tested a prototype on yourself.  You were curious to see if trolls had enough sensory receptors that responded to deep vibration for the idea to actually work.  That had been a glorious night for scientific experimentation.  
  
Now you spank him - now that he's completely incoherent, overwhelmed by a dizzying array of stimulation.  He moans, rocks slightly into every strike, too fucking confused between rage and pleasure, discomfort and humiliation and tortured arousal, to protest anything.  You aim the majority of your strikes at his inner thighs and the cleft that splits his legs - his nook is dripping and you can  see his muscles shaking as he clenches, writhes, twists.  
  
It's surprisingly exhilarating, beating the hell out of him - he's muscular, so you really have to lay into his skin to get it to bruise, and watching him go from slate grey to tender, raw violet is a thing of beauty.  Every strike jostles the vibrator, but not  _enough_ .  He's babbling, whining, making threats and pleading with you.  It gets your blood racing.  
  
 _Not_ fucking him right then and there is actually incredibly difficult.  
  
You're still in control, though.  You're not letting yourself get lost in the way Eridan looks (so desperate to be fucked he's convinced he'll die if you don't), the way he smells (mouthwatering), the way his arousal is so dense in the air you could fucking choke on it; the insane noises, though, are getting to you.  You grope his abused flesh and squeeze - see, like that, that noise was completely unfair.  You know for a fact you're nowhere near this vocal.    
  
You step back, breathe a little, and then circle the table, finally getting a look at his face.  
  
He's so overstimulated he's crying, tears puddling under his chin, and his fucking facial expression is - you wish you had a camera.    
  
"Nnngh," is all he can manage.  He looks so outraged - his eyes are black with arousal and fury, even though he can barely focus them on you for more than a minute before he twitches, crying.  He can't  move , he can't come, he can't escape the vibrator or suck it in farther.    
  
You reach into your sylladex and take out the metal gag.  
  
He freezes, holding as still as he can, and clenches his mouth shut.  
  
You were prepared for that.  Pinching someone's nostrils shut doesn't actually force them to open their mouths - they can still breathe through their teeth, if they pull their lips back - but there's a pressure point near the back of the jaw, so you cup his chin in your hand, like you're lovers, and  squeeze.  
  
It takes time and a lot of pressure for him to crumble, mouth weakly falling open.  He's still a bitch about it - tries to push it out with his tongue - but eventually you get it into his mouth and secure the buckle behind his head, over hair damp with sweat.  
  
Perfect.  Eridan is a sweating, shaking, impossibly aroused portrait of Sexy Agony.  
  
And then, because you fucking hate him, and one bad turn absolutely deserves another:  
  
You pick up your laptop.  You walk over to the couch, settle yourself comfortably facing away from him, put in your earbuds.  You start listening to a repetitive, constant techno track, and set it to loop indefinitely, drowning out all other sources of noise.  
  
You have twenty-three unread messages in your inbox from KK and six from FF.  
  
You spend the next two hours patiently and helpfully responding to each and every one.  
  
-  
  
It's impossible for you to actually  forget that Eridan is bound and gagged on your table less than a full meter away, but Eridan doesn't know that.  You can smell his fear, rising to compete with his arousal.  Rage doesn't have a scent so much as it has an electric potential - his is practically crackling, a static film in the air, a shiver down your back.  You keep your posture relaxed and your breathing normal, your face impassive.    
  
Once you've cleaned out your inbox, you set your hard drive to defrag, and stretch, setting the laptop carefully down.  
  
As casually as you can manage, you glance over at your kismesis.  
  
... Jegus.  
  
His hips are twitching, trying to lurch forwards every few seconds.  His hands are in loose - almost relaxed fists, while his toes keep clenching - when his hips jerk - and then slowly uncurling.  The table, beneath his hips, is utterly  soaked \- his nook is a continuous drip, sliding down his bruised inner thighs and puddling under his knees.  His bulge curls, helplessly, against nothing.  
  
The really breathtaking part of this picture is his face.  
  
His eyes are completely swallowed by pupil, black and glassy and distant.  (You can almost see the spades swimming in their depths.  You shiver.)  The gag makes it impossible for him to swallow or completely shut his mouth - there's a line of drool dripping down, which you know he'd find humiliating if he were 100% present, but his eyes say he's _fucking_ _ gone._  
  
2uce22.  
  
Now to drag him back.  
  
-  
  
The last few projects you worked on required the most artistic control of the pocket torch and the most fine control of the iron with your psionics.   The gas tanks and the case for the pocket torch are under the table; you pull them out and then kneel in front of Eridan, waiting for him to notice you.  
  
He blinks a few times, getting you in focus, and his brow wrinkles.  
  
You light the torch with your _ red_: the valves open to allow a flame about three inches high to blossom out the tip, crackling in the air.  
  
Eridan blinks again, and then goes pale, jerking against the collar.  His pupils shrink to pinpricks in less than a second.    
  
"Now that I have your attenthion," you say, letting yourself grin like a fucking lunatic, shutting the valves and cutting off the flame.  "I have a prethent for you."  
  
(You've been holding it in your pocket, actually, in a container full of isopropyl and iodine to keep it as sterile as possible.  You could glove your hands if you really felt like following the letter of the law, but you know where everything in your room has been and if Eridan gets infected, well, just another excuse to rub disinfectant into the wound, right?)  
  
He's trembling - by now the vibrator should be a terrible raw pleasure, much like the pressure behind his bulge.  It's clear from how slowly he follows your hands with his eyes that he's barely cogent enough to think - he's drooling a little harder, actually, which is fucking gross.  
  
You let him stare at the long, sharp needle-stem of the earring, but don't let him look at the design.  He'll find out later; this shit isn't coming off, after all.  
  
You fumble around for a marker, and carefully dot the small knot of cartilage at the base of his left face-fin.  (The logic here being: cartilage piercings hurt more.)  You don't want it off-center.  
  
He's whining, behind the gag; you make a soft crooning noise, run a hand through his hair.  "Pretty bitch," you call him, and you mean it, he's fucking pretty when he's bound and gagged for you.  You center the sharp end on the spot you marked, and curl your fingers around his fin, holding the head in place with your thumbs.    
  
"On three," you say.   "One.  Two."  
  
And then you press it through, one smooth motion.  
  
His spine goes utterly straight; he pants, furiously, through his nose, whining sharply and plaintively, whole body convulsing so hard it looks like a small seizure.  
  
"Almotht done," you murmur, and pick up the torch again, lighting it easily.  " _Hold thtill._ "  
  
And he  _freezes_ , doesn't even breathe, eyes as wide as they can possibly go, glued to the flame.  You bend his fin away from his face a little, and then - with a cap you made - you solder the earring shut.  
  
He's terrified you'll burn him, terrified you'll drip molten solder on his skin.  He's trying to hold still, but he's still trembling like crazy.  
  
You nick your thumb and let a drop of your blood hit his ear, and crack the fuck up when he  screams into the gag, flinching away from it before he realizes what it is.  Dumba22.  
  
"Ok, ok," you giggle, shutting off the torch for good.  God, you're so fucking giddy.  Look at how miserable he is, look at that fucking  loathing lighting up his face like a beacon.  Your contempt for him is warm, lovely, pulsing through your body.  You're still hard as fuck.  He can probably smell it, now that you're close enough to his nose.  
  
You wobble to your feet, fondly regard your desecration, and then get down to the pleasant business of fucking him stupid.  
  
You pull the vibrator out with a jerk that makes him shriek, again; unzip your baggy cargo pants and introduce your bulges to his open, aching nook.  You take your time, sliding in.  You want his pain to be a raw, slow burn, not a harsh jab.    
  
For all your restraint, it doesn't take long for him to accommodate you; he's absolutely drenched in his body's natural lubricant.  He feels fucking  _good_ , nook clasping you like it's trying to fucking  strangle you, skin hot and sweat-slick beneath yours.    
  
"Fuck," you murmur, leaning forwards, reaching for the buckle of the gag and wriggling it open - he spits it out of his mouth and starts gasping for air, unable to keep an ounce of emotion out of his ruined voice.  
  
That fucking _ sound._  
  
You grip him by the hips, claws unsheathing into his skin, and - mmm.  Yeah, you're never going to get tired of the sounds Eridan makes when you do this, when you fucking batter him.  He sounds like a martyr and a whore, you  love it, you love this - this fucked-up, perfect product of your perfectly mutual hatred.    
  
You love hating him.  
  
You don't try to draw it out any longer - fumble at his bulge, release the ring, and then just plow him, in and out and further in, until he sobs, spattering his slurry all over his legs and all over the table.  His nook clamps down even harder once he orgasms - it's enough, after a few more thrusts and twists, to bring you over the edge.  You figure his nook's been abused enough; instead you spill all over his back and cuffed arms, getting your genetic material everywhere, marking every available inch of him with _ Sollux Captor._  
  
He groans, low in the back of his throat, when your hot slurry hits his skin.  For a moment, you just... savor it.    
  
But you can't stand there, stuck to him, forever.  You kick off your pants.  Sighing with aesthetic pleasure at his welts, you unbelt his legs - help his feet find the floor - and then you uncollar him, lifting his torso off the table with your psionics flickering around his body.   
  
You settle him on the floor, draped over your lap so you can get at the cuffs.  While you fiddle, he sinks his incisors into your thigh and then sucks, angrily, at the cut.  He's like a fucking rainbow drinker, only he's completely motivated by spite.  
  
You can't help it - you laugh at him.  "I _hate_ you," you tell him, pulling the cuffs off, straightening his arms for him.  
  
"I fuckin' loathe you, too," he grumbles, eyes still damp from the intensity of what you just put him through, blearily looking up.   
  
"Jutht needed to show you what  _happenth_ , when you let me know you need thomething ... intense," you tell him, running your claws over his scalp, petting his hair.  "I fucking deliver, OK?"  
  
"Dickface," he says, and grimaces, a shaking hand hovering over the tender - already swelling - area where you pierced him.  "Give me a fuckin' mirror, I wanna see this."  
  
You are Sollux Captor and you have never owned a mirror in your life.  
  
Eridan sighs and rolls his eyes -  _obviously you don't have a coddamn mirror _\- and fishes one out of his discarded jeans.  Your stomach flips with disgust.  Who carries a fucking mirror with them  _wherever they go?_  
  
You don't complain, though, because when he sees the jewelry glittering in his fin, his whole face lights up.  
  
It's a thick, chunky spade, finished a polished black: in the center, you carved your sign.  
  
"Sol," he murmurs, choking up a little.  "Fuck."  
  
"You're eathy to pleathe," you mutter, shrugging, curling your lip up.  "If it'th shiny you'll jizz yourthelf over it."  
  
"Shut your fuckin' ugly face," he sniffs, and much to your horror, he wraps his arms around your waist.  "Thank you."  
  
"Thtop it," you grumble, but you can't really muster enough revulsion to shove him off.  
  
... Right, there was one last thing.  One last Big Thing, the thing that was 0% masturbatory fantasy and 100% Trying To Make This Relationship Work.  
  
Rather than displace him, you summon it from behind the couch with a small flourish of blue.    
  
"Here, thith ith your actual prethent," you mumble, shoving it at him.  
  
He blinks.  Frowns.  "Sol, the fuck is this?"  
  
"A fucking headthet, you technologically illiterate imbethile."  
  
"Why the  fuck would I need a fuckin' headset, Sol, that's basically totally fuckin useless for me -"  
  
"Becauthe I can't  _not_ be an introverted fuckath who thtayth in hith hive for a perigee and a half being a fucking geniuth programmer," you growl, and he shuts up, staring at you in a measuring way.  "And you can't not be a thtupid fucking  LARPer who gothipth conthtantly and loveth thportth.  Tho.  Call me on thith, if you want to talk or whatever.  It'll get through to me."  
  
... Eridan doesn't say anything.  
  
He holds you tighter, though, silently pressing his face into your stomach, pressing his cheek against the wound in your thigh.  
  
You figure that means that you've leveled up or something.    
  
Sollux Captor and Fishlips: blackest kismessitude around.  Everyone el2e go home.    
  
Happy caliginous endings for everyone.  
  
... And then Eridan picks up the fucking cuffs you spent a whole fucking day building, holds them in both hands, and snaps them in half with  _absolutely disgusting ease_ , smirking up at you.  He's grinning like he won the whole pool betting on the Cullings.  
  
For a moment you're too stunned to react; he yawns, contemptuously, and drops the mangled pieces on the floor.  "Yeah, so, Sol, next time, let me use my fuckin' hands, okay?"

He was _fucking with you again the whole fucking time._  
  
"You  _bitch_ ," you hiss.  
  
"Yours, though," he points out, grinning like a fucking moron.  
 _  
Jegus fuck._ _  
  
__You fucking hate this guy._  



End file.
